Monthly Sports Round-up - May 2006

May 1 - This has nothing to do with any sports event. But this is a really weird & interesting coincidence. Kobe becomes a father on this day and guess who became father on the same day? It is none other than Shaq. Both of them had girl babies too and the babies were born some 6 minutes apart. It is so ironic that 2 players who are sworn enemies on and off the court, had to become fathers on the same day.

May 6 - The Clippers win their first postseason series since April 1976, when they were the Buffalo Braves. They snap a streak of 29 consecutive postseasons without winning a playoff series - the longest in NBA history whereas their more celebrated city team, the LA Lakers found themselves eliminated in the 1st round of the playoffs by a determined Suns team in a grueling 7 game series, which went right down to the wire. It was so sad to see my favorite Lakers team go down, after leading 3-1 and needing just a win to seal the series. Rubbing salt to the wound was the fact that Steve Nash was selected as the MVP of the league for the 2006 season. I was really hoping that Kobe would win the award, given his superlative performance over the course of the entire season.

May 6 - Barbaro easily wins the 132nd edition of the Kentucky Derby, with the biggest margin in the race in 60 years. Barbaro swept to the lead at the top of stretch and drew away for one of the more impressive wins in Kentucky Derby history.

May 7- Ferrari's Michael Schumacher wins the European Grand Prix at Nuerburgring to clinch his second win in a row and the 86th of his career.

May 12 - US Sprinter Justin Gatlin breaks the coveted 100m dash world record at the Qatar Grand Prix. He takes over the world record from Asafa Powell of Jamaica, who set the record sometime last year. Gatlin finished the race in 9.76 seconds, slicing 1/100th of a second off the previous world record. It is amazing to observe the pattern in which the 100m record is falling. Like 10 years ago, the record would go down by 1/10th of a second, whereas in the last few years, the record has always been broken by 1/100th of a second. Gone are those days when it was being said man can not run the 100m faster than 10 seconds.

May 13 - AskMen.com comes up with the list of the Top 10 angriest athletes of all time. And oh yeah, John McEnroe finds a place in the list. The only other athlete that I knew from the list was Rasheed Wallace of the Pistons. Wonder how a similar list for cricketers would look like...

May 14 - Nadal proves his superiority over Federer, with his 3rd straight win of the year over Federer, in the finals of the Rome Masters tournament. But as this article suggests, the gap between Federer and Nadal is only closing and all this means only one thing - an intriguing French Open where Nadal will clearly be the favorite to win it again.

May 14 - Alonso extends his lead over Schumacher by 15 points with another impressive win at the Spanish Grand Prix and thus ending Schumacher's quest for a 3rd successive win. He also becomes the first Spaniard to win the Spanish GP.

May 18 - Justin Gatlin's happiness at breaking the 100m record, is short-lived as the IAAF takes the record away from him, citing an error in the stop clock used in the Doha Grand Prix. Looks like the actual timing was 9.766 and instead of rounding it to 9.77, they round it off to 9.76. Gatlin will have to share the record of the world's fastest human with Asafa Powell, atleast for now.

May 20 - After an agonizing 2 week wait, Barry Bonds finally catches up with Babe Ruth at the 2nd position on the all-time career Home Runs list. Though the reactions to this one were very mixed, I sincerely feel that this is a feat that nobody else in future will be able to match. But at the speed he is going, the magical number of 755 does not look possible.

May 22 - This was something I have been waiting for a while - Martina Hingis' first ATP win after her comeback. She wins the Italian Open with a straight sets victory over Dinara Safina, Marat Safin's sister. Though this was not a great tournament to win, I was so happy for her, that she has made it back to top form that fetches her ATP tournaments. Having said that, I still have my doubts as to how she will match up against the likes of Sharapova and Clisjters. The upcoming French Open will have an answer to my questions.

May 25 - Team India is brought down crashing down to earth by a resurgent West Indian team with a humiliating 4-1 loss in the ODI series. Though the first 3 games went right down to the wire, the West Indians just walloped the Indians in the final 2 ODIs. The fact that India lost 2 close encounters consecutively probably took its toll on the Indians. I do feel that the team management has to arrive at a solid batting line-up for the middle-order. This exercise of playing around with Dhoni, Pathan and Raina need to stop, now that we have tried each of them at different positions & have seen what they can do. Did I hear someone say we missed Sachin :) Now, the focus shifts to the test series and it remains to be seen if the Indians can salvage some pride by winning the test series (or atleast drawing level).

May 28 - The French Open begins. And the interest of a billion people is killed on the first day as Sania loses in the first round, again. Meanwhile, Nadal re-writes the clay court record for the most number of consecutive matches won with his first round victory in the French Open.

May 28 - And then there was only one. Barry Bonds with his 715th career home run, overcomes the Babe in the all-time home runs list. He accomplished this feat during his game against the Colorado Rockies at home. Now, as expected, the ESPN bottom-line which was saying 'Chasing Ruth' before the homer now has been changed to 'Chasing Aaron'

May 28 - Renault’s Fernando Alonso took victory in an eventful Monaco Grand Prix this afternoon, extending his lead in the world championship to 21 points.

Best Sporting event of the month - The conference semi-finals between the Spurs and the Mavericks is my pick for this month's best sporting event. What a series it was, with 4 of the 7 matches decided by fewer than 5 points and 2 of them going to overtime. In the end, the Mavs prevailed, thanks to some superior coaching job by 'the coach of the year' Avery Johnson. I am happy for the Mavs and would be very glad if they go on to win the Championships.

Best individual performance of the month - This has to be Hingis. She might lose early in the French Open but I salute her for the perseverance she has shown, in her comeback to the game that she once ruled.